


Tiger on a Gold Leash

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, The Big C (TV)
Genre: A Happy Surprise Ending, Alpha Lee, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Fae Lee, Fairy Tale Elements, Hannibal Extended Universe, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Nigel, intersex omega
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-15 23:39:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14800142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: Nigel has spent his life fighting for both respect and power, neither of which are easily granted to an omega, no matter how fierce he may be. It was only a matter of time before one of his alpha rivals sent an assassin to kill Nigel during his annual heat. Precautions have been set in place for such an event since he conquered the kingdom.The man sitting on Nigel's throne defies all expectations. He might not even be a man.





	Tiger on a Gold Leash

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for [OdeToMurder](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HCOdeToMurder), but never finished (obviously), and almost didn't finish it in time for this fest, either. These two didn't want to stop side-questing. Or screwing. Totally their fault.
> 
> This story was written with Lorde's song "Royals" in mind, specifically [this cover by Pentatonix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9XQ2MdNgKY). I'm listening to it right now, and have probably contributed at least 300 views to the video. At least. (Just do yourself a favor and go listen to them, they're fucking superb.)
> 
> Enormous thanks to [damnslippyplanet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet/works) for looking this over on short notice! <3

Even in the downward spiral of heat, Nigel remains aware enough to know a threat when he smells it. Whoever has slipped into his throne room may be an alpha, but Nigel’s resisted alphas all of his nearly thirty years of life. He  _ earned _ this queendom, goddammit; no mere alpha can wrestle it away from Nigel, no matter how much his body craves a knot.

Sweat plasters his silver-streaked hair to his forehead, rolls down the back of his neck, follows along the curve of his spine. Nigel doesn’t feel like a queen, covered in nothing but a robe, leaning heavily against the castle walls as he  inches down the corridors and toward his hard-won throne. Every movement feels like backstroking through sludge, his muscles tingling and twitching as though they’ve fallen into a sleep Nigel, himself, can’t reach.  Each annual heat proves more difficult than the last, and pain swirls in his abdomen, but Nigel steels for a fight nonetheless. Let him fall protecting his crown from this intruder.

Nigel falters,  barely capable of throwing open the throne room doors . Death seems inevitable if he can barely summon enough strength to make an entrance.

“You need better guards,” and the stranger’s voice echoes across the room, wraps around Nigel like honey, thick and sticky and warm. “I mean, I know you make everyone leave for your seasons, but if these betas are the best you can muster?”

“My honor guard,” Nigel tells him. He pulls his body as upright as he can, holds himself as regally as possible, curious as to how much longer his bones can creak before they break.

The man grins,  seemingly oblivious to Nigel’s internal torture, but doesn’t move otherwise, legs still thrown over one of the ornate throne’s arms, his knee-length booted feet kicking idly, casting long shadows in the twilight. “They hardly honored you.”

“Are they dead?”

“Assassin I may be,” he says, “but that doesn’t make me a murderer.”

“I think that’s exactly what it fucking makes you.”

“Don’t worry, little bear.” He sounds amused; Nigel hates him on principle. “They’re taking a nice long nap. Everyone likes naps, right?”

Nigel’s close enough to see him, no longer a brilliant blur. A shaved head and stubbled face; lean, but muscular; clad all in blue, a match to his eyes, more casual than any assassin Nigel’s fought off before. He holds Nigel’s crown like a discus, curled in the crook of his arm, resting on his stomach—Nigel hates how brilliant the gold and diamonds appear against the twilight shade of his tunic and breeches. In his other hand, he clasps a crystal goblet, and Nigel wonders what wine he’s pilfered from the castle’s stores.

The man looks like no alpha Nigel has ever had the displeasure of seeing; he could so easily imagine lying with him, should Nigel allow his mind to drift there.

“Are you alright?”

“Not at fucking all,” admits Nigel. The silk of his robe begins to cling to the backs of his thighs. “You always meet your victims at their weakest?”

He sighs, shifting in his seat, back arching obscenely. “I’d hardly describe you as weak, Your Majesty.”

“And yet your employer sends an alpha to the Virgin Queen at the onset of his heat.” The title tastes like bile.

“Three employers, actually,” the man says before taking a sip of his stolen wine. He makes a show of enjoying his drink, swishing it in his mouth, the movement mesmerizing. After swallowing, the tip of his tongue traces the bow of his lip, and Nigel can smell his own slick. “You’re a very wanted man,” and he flicks his eyes up and down Nigel’s body.

Nigel resists the desire to move closer, to seek the stranger’s scent. He  smells delicious, like the deep moss of the forest surrounding his queendom, woody and untamed. “Excuse me if I don’t fucking believe you, because there’s no fucking  _ way _ any of the other kingdoms would form an alliance, no matter how much they hate me.”

“Ah,” he begins, “you assume they’ve hired me together, but I’ve accepted all of the contracts separately.”

“So none of them know about the others?”

“Not a clue.” He swirls the goblet, peering into it much like Nigel’s seer scries her crystal. “Surely you anticipate being targeted during your heats.”

Nigel huffs, but it hurts his chest, already heaving. “I can protect myself and what is mine.”

“A good thing, considering you spring clean the people out of the castle. Trust issues, much?” he asks, smiling cheekily before downing the rest of his drink. Nigel expects the intruder to continue ribbing him; instead, his brow furrows. “Do you need your throne?”

“It  _ is _ mine, you know. Fucking cunt.”

The assassin’s face softens, rolling his legs off the arm, feet on the floor, rising and striding, crouching and holding out his now empty hand. Nigel hadn’t even noticed how hunched over he’d become. “The cunt in the room isn’t mine,” he says, “and I promise, you aren’t in danger. Not from me.”

Snarling, summoning all of his strength, Nigel lunges at him, anyway.

It’s messy, Nigel leaking slick profusely, aroused by the fight. He bites and claws, shaking and shivering; his fist connects with the stranger’s nose, a sickening crack, blood flowing, staining the fine blue of his garmen t. Nigel’s crown rolls across the floor, an echo of metal on marble.  The smell of iron distracts Nigel, awakening a primal need, and he wants to taste his blood, lick it up, groom his alpha like a good mate.

_ Fuck. _

But the man catches him as he collapses, holds him, shushes him. “It’s alright,” he repeats, over and over. “I won’t hurt you, dear Nigel; I intend to protect you from these cowards.”

“You—you’re a fucking strange assassin.”

He laughs, a gentle and quiet sound. “I never said I was good at my job.”

Nigel’s hand trembles, fingers smearing the blood on the man’s face. “You pity me.”

“By all the  _ gods, _ no.” His skin is heavenly cool against the sunburn heat of Nigel’s own. “I admire you, honestly. Most of my life has been spent in meditation, learning how to control my own...oh, let’s call them urges. Yet you! You’re near immovable. An unyielding rock in endless rapids.” He pushes the hair out of Nigel’s face, fingertips lingering against Nigel’s skin. “I’m nothing more than a stream which seeks the ocean.”

“I’d feel better if I was a godsdamned rock.”

“How do you manage to go these alone?” asks the man.

“By being stubborn as fuck.” Laughing hurts, but so does everything else. “No alpha’s ever going to hold me the fuck down. No one’s going to fucking leash me. Not so long as I have breath.”

“No wonder your enemies are out for blood.”

Nigel hums. He shouldn’t trust him, but his body disagrees, eyelids slipping closed automatically, the ache of his heat comforted by the alpha’s scent. “Which ones this time? You said three, I think?”

“Do you have that many rivals?”

“I have that many  _ brothers. _ Those ugly alpha shits are personally offended by an omega on a throne.” Nigel chooses not to hide the swell of pride, flowing through his voice as heavy as the slick trickling down his legs. “So which ugly alpha shits in particular?” he asks again.

“The assignment given me by Draco of Argos was fairly boring,” says the man. “Infiltrate; assassinate; incinerate. All run-of-the-mill and disappointingly unimaginative.”

“You— _ fuck!” _ Nigel doubles over, curls his knees toward his chest as the persistent clench in his guts grows violent. “Don’t gentle me!” he orders, though Nigel wants it, yearns for it, longs to have the stranger rest his hand on the back of Nigel’s neck as opposed to withdrawing it.

“Is there anything I can do?” He sounds so earnest.

“Just keep—shit, keep talking.”

The stranger resumes petting Nigel’s hair; he can’t help but lean into the touch. “Hannibal of Lecter wants a literal pound of flesh.”

Nigel wrinkles his nose in disgust. “For his dinner table, no doubt. He was always fucking off in the head.”

“As for Chiffre of Royale…” His hand stills, and the unmistakable odor of angry alpha curls into Nigel’s nostrils. “As for him, he wishes me to do unspeakable things to you. That’s why I’m here, you know.”

“To do unspeakable fucking things for my most sadistic brother?”

“No.” Nigel lets the man lift his chin, meets his eyes. Only kindness, enough to drown in. “No,” he repeats, “I’m here to help you win three kingdoms in the middle of your heat without lifting a finger.”

Nigel blinks. Twice. “You’re what—why—how—”

“Just where and when left to go.” Before Nigel can continue fumbling his words, the man continues, “It’s a surprisingly simple plan. See, I happen to have several urns out in my cart. The vessels of my fallen comrades.”

“May the gods keep them.” Nigel tries to stop clinging to him; it proves impossible. The assassin only places his hand over Nigel’s, pressing them both against his chest. His heart beats a mesmerizing pattern, a soothing song.

“Anyway, one of my cairde agreed to be sent to Draco, as proof of your death. His magicians can test it, and find the ashes to be human.”

“And the cannibal?”

“Are you really related to him? To  _ any _ of them, really, but especially him.”

“I never did fit in. Born to the wrong fucking family.” Nigel tries not to read too much into the sudden hesitance in the assassin’s eyes. “As for Hannibal,” he continues, “I have a missing chunk from my side to prove his human hunger.”

The man crumples in laughter, a sound as lovely as his heart’s echo. “Well I thought a leg might be best to send. There’s an amputist in a nearby village who owes me a substantial debt.”

Nigel decides it’s better not to know the details. “And my least favorite fucker of all?”

“I also have a midwife indebted to me, though for far less than the amputist.”

“She’ll give bloody sheets and oath and all?” He lets the stranger pull him up to sit; Nigel’s face instinctively falls into the crook of the man’s neck. The whine jerked from his lungs disgusts Nigel.

A hand immediately settles on the crown of Nigel’s head. He’s held like a child, and how ironic, Nigel thinks, that he should feel safest in the arms of a man ostensibly sent to kill him, to mutilate and pillage his body.

“Bloody sheets and oath and all,” murmurs the man.

“Terrible assassin.” The words nearly lose themselves into corded muscle.

“I kill plans,” he says, “not people.”

“For riches?” Nigel’s hand shakes as he places the man’s palm against his sternum, shakes harder at the alpha’s appreciative rumble.

“Not my style.” He rakes his fingers through the thick gray hair on Nigel’s chest, nails a barely-there scratch, only serving to stoke the wildfire in his loins. “Curiosity, maybe? I don’t know. I just enjoy the journey. Being a hired killer allows certain freedoms and mobility.”

“A hired killer who doesn’t fucking kill.”

“Nobody’s perfect. Besides, there are worse things than dying,” he explains. “Whatever the end result, I always solve the problem.” His thumb sweeps beneath Nigel’s right eye. “Will you let me solve yours?”

“Which one?” Nigel chuckles weakly.

“Whichever you like.”

“I won’t take a mate.” The vow scratches the inside of Nigel’s throat. “And I don’t even know your fucking name.”

“I’m Lee,” he says, swiping the other side of Nigel’s face, further down his cheek. “I won’t mate you, Nigel of Ibanescu. You have my word.” The sudden pull of Nigel’s hair in Lee’s fist makes him gasp, though he attempts to bite it back. “You can have my knot, too,” he offers, “should you want it.”

Nigel growls, spitting, “Not too old to bear my replacement.”

Lee tightens his grip, nostrils flaring along with the new gush of slick from Nigel’s cunt. “How lucky, then, for you to meet an alpha who has practice controlling themself.” He plants a single kiss on Nigel’s forehead before adding, “I can knot you as long as you like, my sweet, and never, never come.”

“Oh gods.”

“Only me.”

“I hate a fucking jester.”

Lee snaps his teeth at Nigel playfully. “A good thing I’m not one.”

And it’s a  _ better  _ thing, the way Lee unwraps Nigel from his robe, lying him down on the chilled floor, chasing every drop of sweat and slick on Nigel’s body with his tongue. Nigel feels like one whole exposed nerve, each of Lee’s touches approaching a new pleasurable height, as if all of the carnality Nigel has denied himself for years blooms in his blood at once. Lee caresses Nigel in near reverence, like he is, in fact, Nigel’s alpha. His fingertips coax Nigel over the edge for the first time, leaving him little more than a giddy puddle.

“Beautiful,” praises Lee, three fingers deep, fucking Nigel with learned precision. His face is alight, gazing down on Nigel with a strange sort of wonder. Nigel’s never felt like this, never  _ let _ himself feel like this, feel cherished and desired and loved.

Lee brings his fingers to Nigel’s mouth, and now Nigel can appreciate his body, too, enjoy the spun floss taste of his slick, intoxicated with life. He cries out when Lee enters him—

“Are you alright?”

_ “More,” _ Nigel says, “waited years for this,  _ give me fucking more.” _

—and he does, hard enough for Nigel to be distantly concerned about the back of his skull thudding against the floor, but then Lee lowers his mouth to Nigel’s, and he forgets about it entirely. All that exists is the pull of the silk against Nigel’s back as Lee drives into him; the taste of aged grapes on Lee’s tongue; the swell of Lee’s knot as it grows, pushing against all of the perfect spots inside him.

Nigel comes, a matting mess all over his stomach; Lee, however, does not. No pulsing heat. Nothing spilled in Nigel’s empty insides. Lee’s face still holds the laxity of orgasm, but his cock is as hard as ever, his knot as unforgiving.

“What the fuck?”

Lee nips beneath Nigel’s jaw. “It feels so much better this way,” he says, kissing his way back up to Nigel’s temple. “Compounding release,” whispers Lee, lips a tease against Nigel’s ear. “Ethereal, not earthly. I could teach you.” He sucks on the lobe. “Or I could just keep making you come.”

“That one,” groans Nigel.

“Which?”

“Either? Both?”

He kisses Nigel again, a purity in an impure act, an anchor. “As you like.”

 

* * *

 

Lucidity passes.

An hour passes.

A day passes, then two more follow.

“Stay with me,” Nigel says on the fourth day, the two of them entwined in his bed, fresh from the bath. “Be my consort.”

Lee’s smile falters. It seems wrong on his face, a war itself, lips twisted. “This isn’t the life for me, I’m afraid. Too many attachments. I am made to wander.” He clears his throat, glazed eyes glancing away from their clasped hands. “You could come with me?”

“What, after the three armies march on my queendom only to end up fighting each other?” Nigel barks out a laugh, only to hate the quick grimace it elicits.

“I’m not a settle-downer, that’s all.”

Nigel swallows his unexpected sorrow. “Neither of us are mating material, are we, gorgeous?”

Lee flushes from ears to chest. “Gorgeous?”

“You are,” Nigel tells him.

“But not mateable.”

“Neither of us.”

_ “One _ of us isn’t, little bear,” says Lee quietly. “The other takes such bonds all too seriously.”

Days five and six, though immeasurably enjoyable, do nothing to change either of their minds.

Day seven brings Nigel begging, feverish and heat-addled and coated in come. “Stay, Lee. Please, please, stay.”

“I would take you with me as your mate,” he replies, “and I would accept nothing less.”

Nigel wakes on the eighth day to an empty bed, a full castle, and a war on his doorstep, three rival kingdoms fighting amongst themselves with scarcely a thought to the omega they wish to conquer.

 

* * *

 

Lee attends him the next year, and the next, and the next six after. Nigel’s body wears more with each heat; wrinkles crowd the corners of his eyes; no hint of brown remains in his hair. But Lee never changes.

“What  _ are _ you?” Nigel asks, hushed, though the castle lies empty.

“A terrible assassin.”

Nigel rolls his eyes. “What  _ else, _ I mean.”

He hums; the tune sounds familiar. “What else is there to be?”

“Besides human-shaped?”

“Besides mate-shaped?”

“I know better than to join with a fae,” says Nigel, sighing with relief as Lee begins stroking his cock, impossible to see through the bubbles of the bath. “Whatever you may fucking be, that much is apparent.”

Lee kisses the side of Nigel’s neck. “Do you truly believe I would ensnare you?” he asks. “You think I would collar and leash you? Treat you as anything less than an equal?”

Nigel doesn’t answer, and Lee says nothing more.

The next heat, Nigel’s bed lies empty, only the ghost of Lee’s lips on his own.

 

* * *

 

Ten years have gone, and Nigel still can’t look at the throne room floor and keep his composure. The marble haunts him even in his sleep, especially when his heat approaches. Dismissing the entirety of the castle at the onset has become more ceremonial than necessary these days. There’s been peace in the queendom since Lee first set foot within the bounds, no warring brothers to worry about, and no major disputes across the sea. Bottling up in a too-big castle for one week every year has become pointless.

Nigel prefers suffering alone, however, and the gods know how insufferable his life has turned.

So he waits, and he burns, and he regrets.

The days blur together, an endless string of idle boredom. Nigel itches for the road and a decent fight, because he misses battle, the thrill of victory and subjugation of his foes. But there’s nothing here to conquer, and he’s happy for his people—really, he is. They don’t deserve war. Nigel only wishes there was one last adventure left for him to have.

All he looks forward to are the weekly reports from the forest patrols, and even then, Nigel girds himself for disappointment, fingers clutched around the silver key hanging from his neck.

His crown reflects a tired, downtrodden man on the throne of a stranger. Nigel fought so  _ hard _ for it, for his own dignity, for his rights and the acceptance of his subjects. He never thought he would be willing to throw such accomplishment away, but when he thinks about sitting in this chair and wearing these diamonds and listening to the drone of his court, those born into luxury with no idea of what it is to struggle and dream…

Nigel pictures dying here, caught in some serving omega’s fantasy, and it kills him. He no more belongs in this castle than Lee did.

 

* * *

 

All but the most essential servants have been dismissed from the castle, Nigel’s heat no more than a day away. His clothes feel too tight, and the crown is more burdensome than usual. Every sound amplifies, loud enough to raise the hairs on his arms, the prickling more disruptive than the commotion in the great hall.

The doors to the throne room are thrown open, and Nigel understands the fuss.

He doesn’t look any older, but Lee is thin, his eyes sunken, his face gaunt. Haggard; tired; the iron collar and chains the guards escort him in painfully heavy. Nigel never imagined Lee could ever look so wounded—physically, at least. Lee’s face lights up with the same familiar joy that’s haunted Nigel every night Lee wasn’t with him.

How could he be such a fool? How could it have taken Nigel so long to realize this creature conquered him the moment he sat down in Nigel’s throne?

The guards scatter, unused to their queen’s long-tempered ferocity, the growling rage Nigel had to bottle up in the name of peace. He rushes toward Lee, catching him before he topples over. Lee still smiles at him even as his limbs drag to the floor, iron links clanging against the marble. The sting in Nigel’s chest outweighs any bodily discomfort his heat could ever hope to cause.

“We really must stop meeting like this, little bear,” says Lee, and it’s so ridiculous, Nigel had no chance of not laughing. 

Nigel has rehearsed their meeting again in his head for a decade, practiced before sleeping, like a prayer. The words scalded on his skull, memorized, waiting to escape.

But all Nigel manages to say as he rends the leather thong around his neck, tearing off the key, is, “Where the fuck have you been?”

“I missed you, too.” He shrugs. “It’s just that I got very tired of hearing you say no every year. Guess it was silly of me to keep asking.”

Nigel fits the key into the first manacle, chipping through rust. “I did keep inviting you into my bed.”

“Ah, but not into your life.” Lee’s eyes close as he shudders in Nigel’s arms, his wrist freed. “No better than your other suitors. Too pushy. Too...I don’t know, a number of other dreadful things.”

“I sought you, anyway.”

Lee snorts. “I noticed,” he says, rattling the chain lead on his collar. “Caught me rather effectively.”

Nigel purses his lips, then bites and chews at the inside of his cheek. “I didn’t think the snare would work.”

“Oh, it didn’t.  _ You _ caught me, a long time ago. Besides, I can smell iron from an absurdly long distance. Humans have the worst ideas.”

“Then how—”

“I got tired of waiting for you to come find me, yourself.” Lee hisses, rubbing both his wrists. “You adapted to your royal cage too well. Got too comfortable, no matter how loudly I could hear you beat your wings against the bars.”

His fingertips linger on the prominent bones of Lee’s ankle. “So, what, you just—just fucking walked under the tree and let a goddamn iron ring fall around you?”

“It was more of a jump over a root,” explains Lee, “and then the damn thing wouldn’t fall, so there was a significant amount of tree shaking.”

Nigel gets the last of the cuffs off. “Why?” he asks, pulling the makeshift leash harder than he meant to. “Why would you fucking do that?”

“I was curious.” Lee traces the narrow bow of Nigel’s upper lip; his finger leaves static in its wake. “And bored.” He runs his knuckles along Nigel’s cheekbone and adds, “And running out of time.”

“How do you mean?

Lee’s back settles against Nigel’s chest, his head turned to rest on Nigel’s shoulder as Nigel works on removing the collar, though the chain remains looped in his hand. “Fifty-odd years is a long time to be away from the Court. Magic only lasts so long unreplenished. I was due back—” Lee begins counting on his fingers, but gives up two digits in. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Or then, really. Time is meaningless, until it isn’t.  _ Gods, _ I never thought I’d actually find you.”

His fingers pause, key half-worked into the lock. “Find me? I thought you showed up to play at assassinating me.”

He ignores Nigel. “And then I couldn’t leave you,” says Lee, taking Nigel’s hand away from its work, holding it against his chest. Nigel hates every rib he feels. “I suppose I was a settle-downer after all.”

“You’d’ve never survived palace life.”

“Oh, of course not. Keeping to a single forest was bad enough. I’m sure I’d have dragged you back with me through the Underhills and to the Outer Planes within a month.”

Nigel fumbles with the lock and key, trying to use a single hand—he can’t bear to stop touching Lee, and not only because of the lust beginning to simmer under his skin. “I don’t fucking understand why you couldn’t just come to me.”

“It would have been backwards.” Lee sags in Nigel’s arms as the last of the iron comes off. “You had to make the choice, yourself.” He buries his nose against Nigel’s neck, scenting him, pulling a helpless whimper out of Nigel. “It’s the law, you know.”

“What about the nine heats you spent with me asking?”

“Not once have I ever claimed to play either fair or by the rules.”

“I wish I’d gone with you that first time.” Nigel nuzzles the top of Lee’s head. “I’ll go with you now, if the offer still stands.”

Lee kisses his mating gland. “It’s too late,” he tells Nigel. “I won’t make it back to the Court before I fade away.”

“Then I’ll take you by horse.”

“You really think you’ll convince a horse to trot along the fae path?”

Nigel snarls, his breath irregular. “Then I’ll fucking carry you!”

Lee pulls back as much as he can, given Nigel’s tight hold. “You’re on the cusp of your heat,” he says, eyes wide and panicked. “It’s not safe to leave the cast—”

_ “I’m not letting you die, Alpha!” _

His brain flatlines. If Lee’s face is any indication, so has his. They stare at each other for long, weighted moments, blinking in synchrony.

“Such madness in love,” murmurs Lee. “Makes fools of us all, dear Nigel, doesn’t it?”

Nigel can’t manage more than a nod; he feels crazy, calling him Alpha. Never in his life had he expected to give the title, not freely, not of his own volition. His heat closes in further with the realization of how greatly he wants Lee to claim him.

Lee puts the back of his hand on Nigel’s forehead. “You’re burning up,” he says. “It’s too dangerous, dear Nigel. I’m sorry.”

He’s never been one to listen. Scooping Lee up, disregarding his protests, Nigel heads for the stables.

 

* * *

 

The ley line calls to him, and Nigel neither knows nor cares why. He spurs the horse on through the twilight, directing them past houses with their doors thrown open and churches with crooked corners, unwilling to block the path and risk insulting unseen fae. Nigel almost stops at a ring of mushrooms—

“Go on,” Lee urges him, voice faint, skin translucent in the moonlight.

—so Nigel does, on and on, even as the sweat on his palms makes the reins slip from his grasp.

His cape snags on a branch, and Nigel leaves it. When his tunic soaks through, he rips it over his head, throwing it off into the meadow. The horse finally refuses to go further, the path visible and well-trod. Nigel’s glad; it gives him the opportunity to slip off his pants and underclothes, sticky with slick. They’re both nude, skin to skin and side to side, since Lee insists on walking as far as he can.

“Nigel,” says Lee, panting, pained, the moon fully risen. “Nigel, you smell extremely good and it’s very distracting.”

“What—fuck, what am I supposed to do about it?” His voice sounds as strained as Lee’s. “Can’t exactly stop leaking all over the godsdamned place.”

“Lie down.”

“You’re fucking joking.”

“No,” he says, giggling, “I never joke about fucking.”

Nigel hangs his head, still plodding along. “That was terrible.”

A few steps of silence, save a broken twig underneath Lee’s bare toes. “Seriously, Nigel. Lie down.”

“We don’t have ti—”

“Laigh  _ sìos!” _

The ground pulls Nigel to meet it, landing on his knees with a grunt. He looks up at Lee as instinct takes over, slick dripping down his thighs to pool between his legs in the dirt. Lee reaches down to pet Nigel’s neck, and Nigel submits so easily it scares him.

“Tell me who you are,” Nigel says, though it’s more of a question. He can see the trees behind Lee, straight through his body, more a ghost than a man.

All Lee tells him is, “Yours,” and he drops clumsily in front of Nigel, one knee and the other. He guides Nigel to lay on his side, and then his back, spreading Nigel’s legs, exposing him to the chill of the night air. “We have time enough for this,” promises Lee. “I don’t think we’ll have a chance of making it otherwise, though I seriously doubt our chances, anyway.”

“What are you—”

Lee licks a stripe up the inside of Nigel’s thigh, a second, a third, and Nigel realizes, between little spasms of pleasure as Lee nibbles and sucks his way to Nigel’s cunt, he’s being groomed.

His heat hits like an Argosian battering ram, splintering his defenses. Nigel arches up to meet Lee’s mouth, rutting his cunt against Lee’s face, drowning in endorphins as Lee drowns in his slick.

“Play with your breasts for me,” Lee orders, muffled. One hand splays across the small of Nigel’s back; the other begins to slowly pump his cock. “Come on, little bear; help me make you feel good.”

“Feels fucking good already, oh  _ shit.” _

Nigel barely has time to cup his undeveloped chest and rub his nipples before he comes, spilling across his stomach and flooding Lee’s mouth. They’re both gasping for air, but Lee seems more solid, enough for Nigel to wonder why they hadn’t done this before, if the sex helped. Lee kisses him before he can ask, rubbing Nigel’s come into the skin of his abdomen like a salve. Nigel licks the slick off Lee’s face, grooming him in return, ecstatic to give into his omegan nature as he has never allowed himself for fear of being weak.

But he doesn’t feel weak, lying here in the slick-made mud; Nigel feels  _ powerful. _

Lee’s strength begins to wane after several more long, lazy kisses. “Feel better?” he asks, caressing Nigel’s cheek with his lips, running his fingers down the deep scars on Nigel’s side.

“Induced and quelled. You’re fucking brilliant.”

“You mean brilliant at fucking.”

Nigel brings Lee’s forehead to meet his, palm on the back of Lee’s head, and laughs.

 

* * *

 

More rings of mushrooms. More hastily built holes in long-forgotten buildings. More trees and bushes and brambles, growing within reach of the fae path, but never on it.

They stop when Nigel's heat becomes unbearable, and Lee drinks from him. Nigel begs for his knot once or twice, but there’s no time, no matter Nigel’s partially concealed agony.

Walking; limping; dragging; carrying. Lee weighs nothing, a burden of air in Nigel’s arms. His fingers move through Nigel’s flesh and ribs, a physical touch to Nigel’s heart, holding it in his cold, cold hand.

The heat blurs Nigel’s vision, but he keeps moving, trusting his feet to stay on the ley line.

“Hills,” Lee whispers, his voice a broken whistle on the breeze. Nigel can’t see them, eyes clouded over, feverish and flayed.

“Where?”

“Close.”

Nigel can tell when the sun begins to rise, light pooling on the horizon. He treads on grass, buries his toes in rich soil instead of powdered dirt. His knees hit grass, too, and solid ground, but he isn’t falling. They pass through whatever obstacle—maybe the hills Lee spoke of? Nigel can’t care about anything more than the growing emptiness at his core.

Suddenly, darkness.

Lee’s body seizes in Nigel’s arms, tangible, and Nigel can no longer bear him, or his own pain, or the knowledge of what he’s given up—his kingdom; his freedom; his biological birthright. The world crashes around him, body caught in a maelstrom of confused emotions and memories of a place he swears he’s never seen.

This place.

The Underhills.

“Fàilte dhachaigh,” Lee says, springing to his feet to steady Nigel as he sways.  _ “Home. _ I’ve brought you  _ home.” _

Nigel shakes his head, overwhelmed. “Knot, Alpha,” and he hates the desperation in his voice.

They’re sitting, not that Nigel can tell where he perches beyond Lee’s lap, not even acknowledging they moved. Lee guides Nigel down onto his cock, and Nigel cries in relief, even as he flushes with shame.

“No, my love,” says Lee, hands beneath Nigel’s ass, helping him balance as Nigel keeps his own pace. “You’re in control, as you’ve always been, fluid and untameable and timeless as the sea.”

“You—fuck, oh  _ gods— _ have you said that before?”

Lee chuckles into the join of Nigel’s neck and shoulders as Nigel rolls his hips. “Something like it, once.” In a low voice, he talks about water and rivers, wells and rocks and streams. Nigel focuses on the way Lee’s knot spreads him open, rubbing against his inner walls and pushing up against his prostate. Lee doesn’t seem to mind, though he only sits still, letting Nigel use him as he needs.

“I’ve always been a good consort,” he tells Nigel, sucking against his scent gland, driving Nigel wilder still. He feels forty again,  _ thirty _ again, in the prime of his life. “Ah, but you are beautiful at every age.”

“Bite me,” Nigel says. “For fuck’s sake, Lee, make me yours.”

“You first,” Lee teases, and bares his neck.

Nigel shouts as they lock together, as he comes, and doesn’t hesitate, biting down into Lee’s neck, drinking the fae blood so willingly offered.

Lee embraces him tightly, mouth poised to claim. “Well met by moonlight, proud Titania. Your Oberon has missed you,” and his teeth sink into his Queen.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing [this edit](https://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/post/174391902184/leenigel-celtic-folklore-abo-explicit-no). Thank you for reading!
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